SSD for playing games, HDD for storing them

[Asger]

My suggestion is to make steam able to move games from my storage HDD to my game-playing SSD without me having to go into windows folder, move it over, reinstall it on steam so it can be discovered in the new folder.

An example of how i would think it could happen: Have a folder for 'temporary' games on the steam folder on the ssd, have an option to right-click games to move them to this temporary fold and then show a little symbol next to the games in the temporary folder. Then just right click them again to move back OR press new game and have an option to switch it out with the current game in the temp folder or make temp folder bigger.

I'd really like that.

*EDIT* You could also just move it to the temp folder, but keep the original on the hdd. Then just delete it from the temp folder instead of moving it back, as it would be slow with hdd's write speed. Then steam would just have to know to play it from the temp folder instead of the hdd.
I'd like that.

[Spawn of Totoro]

Why? There is no perfomance gain from running a game off of an SSD over an HDD. So much data transfering will also shorten the life of the SSD.

At most, it lessens load times, though not by much. Most the information the game needs is transfered to the RAM already.

[⛧EyMi Mayhem⛧]

ssd for os, hdd for gaming and stuff
..ssd thing is a bit overrated, like water cooling etc.

[Zefar]

Originally posted by Spawn of Totoro:

Why? There is no perfomance gain from running a game off of an SSD over an HDD. So much data transfering will also shorten the life of the SSD.

At most, it lessens load times, though not by much. Most the information the game needs is transfered to the RAM already.

Actually a SSD greatly shortens the load time on various games. BF3 and BF4 for example.

The information from the games that I've used on my SSD hasn't really shortened it's life span. Even if I've reinstalled some large games a several times. I've had mine for over 2 years by now.

For the OS it's awesome too.

[Spawn of Totoro]

Originally posted by Zefar:

Actually a SSD greatly shortens the load time on various games. BF3 and BF4 for example.

The information from the games that I've used on my SSD hasn't really shortened it's life span. Even if I've reinstalled some large games a several times. I've had mine for over 2 years by now.

For the OS it's awesome too.

The games I have tried, there was only a 5 second diffrence. Still doesn't effect the performance of the game it's self.

While if you leave the game on the SSD, it will have little effect on the life spam, but what the OP wants is to constantly copy and remove games from the SSD every time s/he plays, basicaly making it a very large chunk of ram.

Do you copy the full game onto the SSD when you want to play, then copy it back to the HDD when you are done? This is what the OP is asking for.

[Pheace]

There's definitely no doubt that some games benefit a lot from being on an SSD. Especially games that need to do a lot of loading on the fly like Fallout, Skyrim, Assassin's Creed etc where the world needs to get loaded in when you're on the move. Was a world of difference when I put that on my SSD.

The SSD lifespan issue is also a little outdated, these days SSD's longevity really doesn't warrant worrying about it to the point where you should be concerned about moving games on and off your HDD now and then.

As for the OP's SSD/HDD.

What I do is I have Steam installed on my HDD, that's also where games install by default.

Then, whenever I want to play a game I feel benefits from being on the SSD I move it over to my SSD with SteamMover[www.traynier.com]. It's a pretty simple one click thing, and the same for moving it back later.

[Spawn of Totoro]

Originally posted by Pheace:

There's definitely no doubt that some games benefit a lot from being on an SSD. Especially games that need to do a lot of loading on the fly like Fallout, Skyrim, Assassin's Creed etc where the world needs to get loaded in when you're on the move. Was a world of difference when I put that on my SSD.

The SSD lifespan issue is also a little outdated, these days SSD's longevity really doesn't warrant worrying about it to the point where you should be concerned about moving games on and off your HDD now and then.

And those are still load times, not performance. Enough is loaded in advance that you shouldn't have to worry about running out game and have to wait for things to load.

http://betanews.com/2014/12/05/modern-ssds-can-last-a-lifetime/

"Considering that most of us are not constantly transferring huge files, we are looking at a long period of use without issues, perhaps a lifetime."

Thile most of us won't reach the end life of a modern SSD, we are not constantly moving games like Skyrim to and from the SSD on a daily basis. That does add up quickly when the game is 25GB or more. Imagine doint that several times a day.
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Just keep the games that benefit from the faster load times on the SSD and those that don't on the HDD. There should be no reason to keep swapping them, especialy with SSDs gettin as large as they have been.

[Ludus Aurea]

Wow I haven't seen one of these in a while. This exact same post was made about a year or so ago.

That link couldn't be more inaccurate. Even the best SSDs are marketed as having a lifetime expectancy of about 30 tb writes. They absolutely can't last a lifetime. I bought my EVO 850 a year ago and it already has 6 tb of writes to it, health is down to 98%. Per tests you're going to see them fail near a petabye.

http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/solid-state-drives-outlast-pc-hosts/

And yes, SSDs do massively benefit large open world games like Fallout or Witcher. You don't even want to try to play Witcher 3 without one.

[Asger]

@Spawn of Totoro: I dunno, but when i played borderlands 2 on my old computer it would lag up for like half a second/a second every five seconds played, probably due to a slow hdd, which i'm still using along with some others scavenged from notebooks. SSD lifetime and all that isn't a concern of mine, as i will be able to afford a new one in a few years when this one will die.

But yes, I do move all my games to my ssd every time i wish to play them (I don't play single player much after it's completed the first time, only when i get one of those 'urges,' so to speak.)

As for the guy who requested Steam Mover-- Holy crap, thanks man. That streamlines the process a lot, didn't even know this existed, then again i hadn't googled the topic a whole lot, hadn't thought a 3rd party solution would exist.

Cheers

[cinedine]

Originally posted by Spawn of Totoro:

Thile most of us won't reach the end life of a modern SSD, we are not constantly moving games like Skyrim to and from the SSD on a daily basis. That does add up quickly when the game is 25GB or more. Imagine doint that several times a day.
-----
Just keep the games that benefit from the faster load times on the SSD and those that don't on the HDD. There should be no reason to keep swapping them, especialy with SSDs gettin as large as they have been.

I somehow doubt that the TC meant to move each game with the press of the play button, but an option in Steam for a one-time transfer for the game s/he's playing for the next week or month. I can't imagine someone wanting to play a game and sitting through minutes of data transfer each time before the game even starts.

[Arokhantos]

You can already setup ssd as a cache drive while using a mechnical drive it puts most used files on ssd, and less used files on mechnical drive, anyway just hang in there soon you can ditch mechanical hdd for a ssd as the 3D tech will drive cost down a lot, you can already get 750gb ssd for around 200E i believe, probably cheaper even in the US over here we have 21% taxes calculated into prices.

Originally posted by Spawn of Totoro:

Why? There is no perfomance gain from running a game off of an SSD over an HDD. So much data transfering will also shorten the life of the SSD.

At most, it lessens load times, though not by much. Most the information the game needs is transfered to the RAM already.

Depends on the game, there games out there that benefit a lot from ssd, even 1 i know that lags on HDD people even advice installing it on a usb3 thumbstick for faster acces times.

[PhysX]

Originally posted by Spawn of Totoro:

Why? There is no perfomance gain from running a game off of an SSD over an HDD. So much data transfering will also shorten the life of the SSD.

At most, it lessens load times, though not by much. Most the information the game needs is transfered to the RAM already.

depends, for example ark survival evolved (amazing game).
It has extreem loading times, sometimes 10-20 minutes (i got fx8350, r9 390, 8gb ram so it is probably not my pc). I moved it over to my ssd, and it now takes like 30 sec to 1 (maybe 2) minutes. biiig improvement.